In years past, I never had reason to suspect that election fraud would be a problem in state or local elections, because hardcopy paper ballots were used in the voting process, and so could always be hand-counted, if it was necessary to question any result, particularly if the margin of victory or defeat was razor-close.

Then in the ongoing controversy of vote fraud in Election 2020, of which Scytl is accused of being an actor, I decided to have a look at Scytl’s web page and see where their customers are in the world. I was surprised to see that Scytl had penetrated the Land of Steady Habits with its notorious voting machines.

From their website: https://www.scytl.com/en/customers/state-of-connecticut/

UPDATE 31 AUGUST 2021: SOME TIME AFTER THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED, SCYTL REMOVED THE LINKS FOR ITS U.S. CUSTOMER BASE, WHICH INCLUDED CONNECTICUT AND SEVERAL OTHER STATES.

Customers

State of Connecticut

USA

Online Training

“The State of Connecticut awarded a contract to Scytl to implement its online election training platform statewide. Using Scytl’s Election Training solution, the state is now able to provide the Elections Commissioners with a training platform to cover all the uniform procedures of elections.”

And not only does Scytl offer assistance with regular elections, it is available for use in referendums, party elections, university elections, union elections – even shareholder meetings! It is amazing just how pervasive this vote-tabulating system is.

Again, a sample from Scytl’s webpage: https://www.scytl.com/en/we-power-democracy/

ELECTION TYPES

• Political Elections
• Political Party Elections
• Referendums & Consultations
• Professional Association Elections
• Labour Union Elections
• University Elections
• Parliament & Assembly Elections
• Shareholder Meetings

Does this mean that Scytl has a presence in each of the spheres listed above in Connecticut? Perhaps not. But if any town has used Scytl voting machines to assist in referendums, be they voting on publicly-funded building projects or budget proposals, or town ordinances, the voting public would have to question the truthfulness of any referendum results, especially in light of Scytl’s suspected role in nation-wide vote fraud.

Perhaps it is more appropriate to ask if anyone at the State or local level, is asking for Scytl to intervene in election outcomes? Such a thing would require each town or organization to have a villain or two, or three, who would be as sinister in spirit and character, as the deed requires. Connecticut has 169 towns, and many fine people work for them; it is difficult to imagine those people, especially in the small towns, doing something so under-handed. And one would think it would be impossible to keep the secret. But other states have found such people to play the part.

During the 2020 Election, the Town of East Hampton provided throw-away #2 pencils, with which to fill in the ovals on the ballots. In the past, it provided marker pens. The difference is that #2 pencil marks can be erased. Apparently, the #2 pencils were provided, in the interest of inhibiting the spread of Covid-19, and it seems reasonable to assume that was their motivation; or perhaps there was a shortage of marker pens. It seems unlikely that there was some nefarious scheme to erase votes after 8:00 p.m. – after all, why go through the trouble of erasing x-number of ballots, when Scytl could be hired to do that?

Scytl vote-adjusting machines could be used though, as a way to thwart the enactment of any future plan to redistrict. Present state house and state senate districts are sometimes said to favor the Democrats, as they control 2/3 of the seats in both houses, even though there is a relatively even split in party control of the towns. With Scytl vote-adjustments, even a hypothetical court-ordered balance in redistricting, could leave the Republican Party as the minority in both houses, and permanently outside of the Governor’s Mansion, without them ever suspecting why. Until now.

Patrick Cloutier is the author of Mussolini’s War in Spain 1936-1939. Italian Intervention in the Spanish Civil War.